Large-eddy simulation of wakes in an aligned wind farm
This three-dimensional large-eddy simulation shows how wakes form behind aligned wind turbines, interact across successive rows, and couple to turbulence in the atmospheric boundary layer.
What the visualization shows
Each turbine extracts momentum and leaves a low-velocity wake. The wakes expand, merge, and are replenished by turbulent transport from faster-moving air above and beside the farm. Farther downstream, the flow is therefore governed by the interaction between turbine-scale wakes and the atmospheric boundary layer rather than by an isolated-turbine wake alone.
Scientific context
See the wind-farm flow research page and the review by R.J.A.M. Stevens, C. Meneveau, Flow Structure and Turbulence in Wind Farms, Annual Review of Fluid Mechanics 49, 311–339 (2017).
Featured in the PRACE scientific case
The PRACE Scientific and Innovation Case 2026–2034 includes wind-farm LES imagery credited to Richard J.A.M. Stevens and David Bock (Figure 3, p. 21). The report also cites the Stevens–Meneveau review in its bibliography.